Thank You
On this Thanksgiving Monday, while I could thank Mother Nature for her gifts and generosity, I would rather mention those without whom our family enterprise would flounder, our four seasonal employees, Mexicans all, who form the backbone of this farm. That’s not to say that we don’t have other employees. At the season’s peak, we number roughly 10 hard-working humans in the fields, doing our organic farming thing – i.e., planting, harvesting, weeding, irrigating and ultimately, packing your baskets. But if I draw your attention to our seasonal workers – Jhenrri, Crescencio, Carmelino and Gregorio – it’s because they are my closest collaborators in the fields, a reality that has earned them a status that differs from that of the others who join us mid-season, for two or maybe three months, often as coop agronomy students or simply as summer job-seekers. In contrast, our Mexican workers arrive in early spring and depart in late fall, like the migratory birds who follow a similar flight path between the Canadian Great North and warmer climes along the Eastern American seaboard and even further south. I raise my hat to all four of them, to their kindness, their courage and their hard work. Tomorrow morning, at dawn, the first to depart will be returning to his family after a six-month absence. Indeed, I cannot thank them enough.
Fall has arrived suddenly at the farm, like an unexpected guest. In just the past few days, we’ve had to switch from shorts to pants and from comfortable shoes to heavy boots. Don’t mistake me, the grass is still green, thanks to abundant morning dews and nocturnal rains, but our fields are no longer as luxuriant as they once were, the cooler temperatures having affected each and all of their inhabitants, without exception. Well, almost all : there are some leafy greens who relish the cold, which draws out the sweetness hidden within. We’ll be serving them up in succession over coming weeks. The cooler temperatures also signal that it’s time to move seriously into field clean-up mode, patch by patch, sowing green manure as we go. Next week will see us begin to dismantle our low tunnels, yet another Herculean farm task.
Meanwhile, your 
We’ve reached the peak of the season, a time when we begin to anticipate the ebb which will inevitably follow the flow — and quite frankly, this year’s succession of hot, steamy days is bordering on the obscene. This week will be yet another dry one, with little to no precipitation in sight. That said, we won’t exaggerate — already the cooler nights of August are bringing wisps of fog at sundown, and heavy dew at dawn. These contrasts are creating confusion in our plant kingdom as some crops don’t know whether they are coming or going. Indeed, by farmer’s almanach standards, we could well be a mere four weeks away from the first frosts of autumn. But we anticipate too much, we should let nature follow its course, however erratic said course may seem at times. And we’ll cheat a bit, harvesting our onions even as they stand ramrod straight — usually, they begin to topple over as the days shorten — and we’ll soon do the same with our winter squash, despite their showing no signs of slowing down, seemingly blissfully unaware of their imminent demise.
